Jericho (A Redemption Novel) (12 page)

“Christian.” Her eyes welled up with tears.

“None of that,” he ordered.

She nodded and tilted her head back to keep the tears from running down her face.

“It’s nothing much,” he tried to explain. He had General Lee bring a small cake and present for Georgia. He expected the man to question him, to ask about the woman who he’d almost walked in on kissing Christian. He’d never said a word about what he’d witnessed. He’d simply asked what flavor of cake he wanted.

“Come open your present.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“You’re making this hard.”

She didn’t have to elaborate. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He was making their inevitable separation that much harder.

“Open it anyway.” He crossed the room and grabbed her hand, which was a mistake, because whatever strange pull that existed between them intensified tenfold. Her small, warm hand felt right tucked into his.

He led her to the chair and let go of her hand as soon as possible so he could give her his gift. “I wasn’t sure what to get you, so I got you something I thought you could use.”

“A bathrobe.” She looked up at him. “Bunny slippers.” Her smile lit up the room. “Bubble bath. A book!”

“It’s to help you rest.” He looked away from her. He hadn’t bought a present for anybody since his parents died. Seeing how happy she looked caused a lump to form in his chest. It made him want to press his lips to her smile and drink in some of her happiness. “You need to rest more.”

“How did you know I loved art?” She lifted the coffee-table book and gently stroked the glossy pages.

“I didn’t. I had to take an elective in college and the only one they had to fit in my schedule was Women in Art Through the Ages. My professor wrote the forward to this book and I thought you might like it.”

“I love it,” she whispered. “This is the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

“It can’t be.”

She nodded. “It is. My father wasn’t one of those flashy preachers. We only had what we needed, never more. And any extra money we had went directly to the needy. I admired that about him. He believed in what he preached, but he thought most art was scandalous. Unless it was of flowers or fields or Jesus, we weren’t allow to see it. When other girls were sneaking off to meet their boyfriends I was sneaking off to go to the library so I could look at art books. Thank you, Christian.” She hugged the book to her chest. “I will keep this forever.”

He had to clench his hands into fists to keep from pulling her out of that chair and kissing her. They couldn’t do that anymore. The last time had been too close of a call. Plus they were friends. This crazy attraction was only because they were stuck in the confines of the hospital. In the real world they might not have given each other another look.

“How are you feeling? You look much better,” he said, to take his mind off those thoughts. Her color had returned to the pretty shade of honey it was when they’d first met. Her cheeks were fuller. She was always beautiful, but now that she was well rested he had a hard time tearing his eyes away from her.

“I feel fine. Mrs. Sheppard keeps feeding me. At first I felt bad about her going through all the trouble but she says it makes her happy to have somebody to cook for again. I think she gets lonely, too.”

Too? He focused on that word. Georgia was lonely. He knew how it felt to be lonely even though he spent half his time trying to deny what he felt.

“I gained five pounds this week.” She blushed adorably.

“You could stand to gain a little more.”

“That’s what every woman wants to hear from a man. I do believe you are getting smoother, sir.” They smiled at each other for a moment. “My week was good and well needed, but tonight was hard. I had to leave Abby with Mrs. Sheppard again after a week of having her to myself. When I handed her over she looked at me as though I had betrayed her. It was almost as hard as having to leave her for the first time.”

“What do you dream about, Georgia? If you didn’t have this job and all your bills to worry about, what kind of life would you live?”

He had taken her by surprise. She blinked at him. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

“Think about it now.”

“I’d marry a rich old man who was too old to bother me. Tell my boss off. Quit my job and spend all day with my baby.”

“What else?”

“I would bake again. I haven’t had time since I left home but I used to love it. I would teach Abby how.”

“What else?”

“I would take my mama away from my father. Maybe send her on a big vacation around the world. She’s always wanted to go to Florence, Italy.”

“What about for yourself? What would you do that is purely selfish?”

She shut her eyes and thought for a minute. Her pouty lips curled into a dreamy smile. “Lobster. A big two-pound lobster with melted butter, corn on the cob and maybe some steamers. Or scallops and a baked potato with tons of sour cream and butter. And for dessert, blueberry pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.”

Out of all the dreams in the world, that was the one she chose for herself. It made him smile. The nearly blissful expression on her face made him harden. She would be a good wife to some man. To him...

That thought was unwelcome. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t really sure he was capable of such a feeling, but he knew he couldn’t go off to war and leave her behind. She would be a distraction. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate knowing she was at home waiting for him.

“That sounds almost naughty.”

“It is. I had lobster only once in my life. One of the wealthy parishioners invited us to a lobster bake at his beach house. My father said such decadence was sinful, but that lobster was just about the best thing I have ever tasted.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You’re making me want things I can never have.”

She could have them. She could be some man’s wife. She could spend more time with her baby. She could have lobster again. Her dreams weren’t so big. She just had to reach out and take them.

“It’s not so bad to dream sometimes, Georgia.”

“I guess not.” She stood. He did, as well. “Thank you for this, Christian. For everything.”

“You didn’t have any cake.” It was foolish to want to keep her there any longer. As the minutes ticked by he was finding it harder and harder to keep his hands to himself.

“Save it for me.” She placed her gift bag on the floor and reached up to hug him. “I should be getting back to work.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and rested her head against his chest. He had missed the feel of her against him. “Good God, you’re tall.”

He sat on his bed so that they were eye to eye, chest to chest. Her neat little body was tucked between his legs. “Is that better?”

“No,” she breathed.

He brushed his lips across hers. “I think it is.”

She groaned his name. “You’re not supposed to do this to me.”

“I can’t help it.” He captured her lips in a kiss, not like the ones they had shared before. There was no sweetness in his kiss. Only need. She responded so quickly, gripping the back of his head, holding his face to hers. Her mouth tasted good. Like mint mixed with tea. He could taste her all night. Thankfully she seemed to let him.

This time, unlike all the other times, he couldn’t be respectful. He couldn’t control the way his hands wandered her body. He grabbed her behind, cupped the firm flesh in his hands and squeezed. She reacted to it. She kissed him harder, pulled him closer, rubbed her breasts against him. He could feel her hard nipples through the thin material of her scrubs. It was too much. He grasped her breast, rubbing his thumb over the hard little point.

She gasped and looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m sorry,” he panted. “I lost control.”

“No, I liked it. I like the way that feels.”

She hesitated for a moment, but then she took his hand and slid it beneath her shirt and placed it on her naked breast. It filled his hand. He rolled her nipple between his fingers, watching the look of ecstasy that crossed her face. His erection pushed against his pants, begging for freedom. She aroused him like no other woman had. He had to be inside of her. His kissed the column of her throat down to the top of her chest while he stroked her breast.

He had to see her naked. He had to have her beneath him and on top of him and every way he’d imagined since they’d first met. It was too much. She’d finally broken him.

“I need to be with you, Georgia. I need to. I can’t stop myself anymore.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He pulled his lips away from her to look into her eyes. He never dreamed she would agree so quickly.

“Yes. But not here.”

“No.” He removed his hand from her breast. It couldn’t be here. He wanted to make love to her in a real bed, in a nice place where they didn’t have to leave for hours. “I’m going to Afghanistan soon after I leave here. I have a few days in between. We could spend them together.”

She shook her head. “Just once, Christian. We can only be together once.”

He nodded, understanding her reasoning. If it was more than once it would be nearly impossible for him to walk away.

He stroked his hands down her back, unable to break their connection for even one moment. “You should say no. I don’t deserve you. You shouldn’t give me your body.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not as good as you think. I’ve done bad things in my life.”

“As a soldier?” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I don’t like war, but surely God won’t blame you for what you did in the name of your country.”

“No, it’s worse than that.”

“Tell me.” She ran her slim fingers along the curve of his mangled ear. She looked so understanding, so patient, so ready to hear his confession.

He swallowed hard. He never shared what he had done with anyone. “It happened when I was stationed in Japan.”

He told her the whole story, about Miko, about his friends, about how he didn’t do all that he could have to help an innocent girl.

She didn’t say anything for a long time after he finished. She’d been raped and ended up pregnant. She should hate him, because in the end he was just as guilty as his friends.

“It doesn’t change my mind about you,” she finally said.

“How could it not?” He gripped her waist, pulling her closer. “I could have stopped it.”

“Maybe. But you were still a kid and you don’t know exactly what happened that night. You tried. You did a lot more than some other people might have done and you spent the past eleven years being the best man you could possibly be. You’ve got to forgive yourself.”

But he couldn’t. “I wish I could find a way to make up for it.”

“You can.” She ran her lips along his scarred cheek. “You are going to be the first man to make love to me. You are going to show me how beautiful sex can be.”

I am,
he thought as he kissed her. He held her face to his and kissed her long and deep. She went slack in his arms, leaning her entire weight on him.

He didn’t deserve her, or this chance to be with such a forgiving woman, but he was going to let himself have something good and sweet and pure for just one night. Because after he left her he was going to devote the rest of his life to the marines.

“Nurse Williams! What on earth are you doing?”

They broke apart only to see Georgia’s supervisor, Nurse Chestnut, staring at them with a look of disgust on her face.

Georgia kept her expression calm, but dread filled Christian. He knew he had just cost Georgia her job.

CHAPTER 12

F
ired on her birthday. Georgia knew as soon as she heard Nurse Chestnut’s voice her career at Jericho Medical was over. She didn’t say a word to defend herself, because there was nothing she could say. She had been kissing Christian. She had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a patient. But she didn’t regret a single moment of it. She was just sad that her time with him was over.

Her father would have said that getting fired was the least of what she deserved. He would have said it was wicked to offer her body to a man who wasn’t her husband. He would have told her she was going to burn in hell.

Maybe what she’d done with Christian was wicked. But she knew she wasn’t going to burn in hell for it. It wasn’t wrong of her to want to spend one night with a man who made her feel amazing and safe, and treated her kindly and remembered her birthday.

Georgia was never like her sister. Carolina was the sweet one. Her father’s favorite daughter. She never spoke out of turn or did anything to anger him. Georgia may not have been the sweet, docile girl her father wanted her to be, but she wasn’t a bad person. She always tried to follow his rules, to take the message he preached every Sunday to heart. But that didn’t get her anywhere, because in the end he’d accused of her being a wanton, a fallen woman, a whore. All because some man had taken advantage of her.

No, she refused to feel guilty about her relationship with Christian. Instead she felt desperate. She had lost her job. Her prospects for another were slim to none. Who was going to be her reference? She knew how this incident would look to a future employer. As if she was untrustworthy.

She racked her brain for options. She was going to apply for jobs anyway. Maybe she could get her old one back at the hospice center. She wasn’t sure what she would do if nobody hired her. There were only two other options. Go on public assistance or take Carolina’s offer and move in with her. Both options were unattractive.

She could work. She was a good nurse. She didn’t want to take money that she didn’t earn. But the thought of going to live with her sister was even worse. She would have to go there in shame. As a failure. Her sister and brother-in-law would have to support her and Abby and she couldn’t stomach that, either.

So the pulled out the paper the next morning and started looking for jobs.

* * *

It took Christian a day and a half to get released from the hospital, and another half day before he was able to track down where Georgia lived. He couldn’t get the image of her face out of his mind. Her boss was berating her, attacking her character, but she kept her head up, and in a move that stunned him and Nurse Chestnut, she’d kissed him softly on the mouth and walked out of his room. He couldn’t let it end like that. He’d ruined her career.

The next morning he’d gone to the hospital administrators to explain to them that what had happened between him and Georgia was his fault. And it was. She’d known how magnetic they were when they were near each other. She’d tried to keep her distance but he wouldn’t let her. He’d kissed her.

After much discussion and a little bullying, he got the administrators to overturn Nurse Chestnut’s decision. Georgia was a good nurse. Her patients loved her. They could find no other fault with her besides a lapse in judgment when dealing with Christian.

In the end they agreed to give her a three-week unpaid suspension, but he knew Georgia couldn’t afford to miss any paychecks. He had to fix that.

He had more money than he knew what to do with. He could help her out. He could make her life comfortable. But when he pulled up in front of her apartment building, the thought of giving her money didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t know what else to do. He was planning to go to Afghanistan in two weeks. After that he might never see her again.

He took a deep breath as he ascended the stairs to her second-floor apartment. The building was dark. The hallways were long and narrow. He didn’t like the idea of Georgia walking through them alone at night. But he shook off his troubling thoughts and knocked on her door.

“Coming,” she called.

His heart raced as he waited. Would she even want to see him? He wasn’t so sure. She hadn’t seemed upset with him when she’d left two days ago, but he wondered how she would feel now. Now that she had had time to process what had happened to her.

“Christian,” she gasped when she opened the door.

His heart lurched in his chest. He had never seen her out of her scrubs before, but there she was before him in a nearly threadbare white tank top and a pair of jeans that curved to her body nicely. And what a body it was. Large firm breasts, a small waist that he could wrap his hands around and round hips that appealed to a baser need in him. But her body aside, it was her face that nearly knocked the breath out of him. Worry seemed to have etched itself in her eyes. She was exhausted. He couldn’t imagine how the past two days had been for her.

“You shouldn’t answer the door without looking in your peephole. Strange men could be standing on the other side of your door.”

“I never thought I would see you again.” She shook her head. “You’re not supposed to be released for another five days.”

“Do you think after what happened I was going to leave things how they were?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I tried not to think about you very much.” She stepped aside. “Come in.”

He entered her tiny apartment. It was one room with an old daybed and a small table in the corner. But besides that there was nothing much except a crib in the corner and a TV. It was very tidy.

She would do any marine proud, but that was the only positive thing he could think about this place. The radiator appeared to be busted. There were cracks in the wall, big splotches where the paint had chipped off. It didn’t feel homey or comfortable to him. Christian wasn’t a man who was used to comfort, but when he thought of the place she called home he never thought it would look like this.

“Sit with me, Christian,” she said, distracting him from his thoughts. “I just put Abby down for a nap. We’ll have to be a little quiet.”

He nodded and sat next to her. His thigh brushed hers. The bare skin of her arm brushed his and it brought back memories of how she felt in his arms. It made him remember the aching need he had for her two days ago. It hadn’t gone away. That little bit of contact made his blood heat. It brought everything he felt for her right back to the front of his mind.

What the hell was his problem?

He had come here to make things right. He shouldn’t be thinking the same thoughts that had gotten him in trouble in the first place.

“If you’ve come here to apologize, you don’t have to. It wasn’t your fault and I don’t want you going the rest of your life thinking you ruined mine. You didn’t ruin it. I’ll get another job. I’ll find my way.”

The hospital hadn’t called her yet. For a moment he thought about giving her the news, but he didn’t want her to get another job. He didn’t want her to come home to this dingy little place. He wanted her to be happy and raise her baby and have some of the things she wished for.

“I didn’t come here to apologize, Georgia. I came here to ask you to marry me.”

Her gaze shot to his. Her mouth hung open. He’d shocked her. Hell, he had shocked himself. He had never thought about getting married, about having a family again, or a home or roots. It would be crazy to have those things with the kind of life he led. But after hearing the words come out of his mouth, he didn’t want to take them back. This was his chance to make up for things.

Miko had crossed his mind a lot over the past eleven years. He wondered what had become of her, and if she lived in poverty or was shunned from her family or if she and her child had any part of a good life. Years later he was faced with another woman, with a child and a hard path to travel.

He could fix things for Georgia. He had the power to make her life good. He couldn’t let this chance to make things right slip through his fingers.

“Are you going to go back to war?”

“No.” The word came out of his mouth before he even thought about it. He knew he couldn’t leave her if there was a chance he was never coming back. She could be a wealthy woman if he died overseas, but he knew Georgia well enough to know that she wouldn’t want that. “I could take care of you, Georgia. You wouldn’t have to—”

“Yes,” she said, surprising him. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

* * *

She’d said yes before he could explain himself. She didn’t want to hear his reasons for marrying her. It wasn’t because of love or devotion or any other reason she’d ever dreamed she would get married for.

Christian had proposed to her out of some misplaced sense of guilt. That was the only reason he wanted to marry her. He thought he was going to take care of her, support her. Make her life a little easier. But that wasn’t why she was marrying him.

She was marrying him because it would keep him from going back to war. And because she could take care of him, show him what it was like not to be alone in the world. Yes, marrying him would make her life easier, but she didn’t want him to think he’d saved her. She could land on her feet without him.

“Did you say yes?” He leaned back in his seat, a slightly dazed expression on his face.

“I did.” She studied him silently for a moment, taken aback by how vulnerable he looked in that moment. She could almost see the little boy he once was, and it made her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. Not many could see past his six-foot-six scarred exterior, but she could, and she knew there was a good man beneath it.

She never thought she would see that good man again. Having him next to her in her tiny apartment, in the real world, was surreal to her.

When she’d kissed him goodbye two days ago, she’d thought that would be the last time. She never thought they would be here. She’d never thought she would agree to be his wife.

Their lives were about to change. He was giving up his career. His life as he knew it. He wouldn’t have to risk being flown home in a casket. He may not have realized what his staying here meant to her. He was giving up something he loved, and when they were married she would go out of her way to thank him for that, to be a good wife to him. She would make it so that he wouldn’t regret not going back to the marines.

“Are you sure you want to marry me?” he asked her, tearing her from her thoughts.

“Do you want to take your proposal back?”

“What?” His gaze shot to hers. “No. I would never do that.”

She reached for his hand, twining her fingers through his, looking for a way to relieve the bit of awkwardness that crept up between them.

The touch seemed to startle him. He looked down at their joined hands and then up to her face. “You’re going to be my wife.”

He stroked his thumb along hers, then turned her hand over so that he could trail his fingers along her palm. She was going to respond to his statement, but tingles broke out on her skin and her tongue couldn’t seem to form words.

She might be marrying him for other reasons besides safety. He was the only man she wanted to share her body with. She’d known from the moment he’d touched her breast the other day that no other man could come close to making her feel that way.

Unconsciously her body leaned against his and she tilted her face up to his, seeking to close the distance between them.

“Mama?”

Georgia jumped at the sound of her daughter’s voice. Abby was sitting up in her crib staring at her. At Christian her little face scrunched in a frown.

“Did we wake you, love? I’m sorry.”

She stood to go get her daughter. Christian followed close at her heels. If he were going to marry her, then that meant he was going to be Abby’s father. Not just her husband. It was the only way it could work. The gravity of that thought hit her as she reached her daughter’s crib. She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him.

“I love her more than life itself, Christian.”

“I know,” he said softly.

“If I marry you, I expect you to be her father. I want you to love her and protect her and support her. I know that’s a lot to ask, but she comes first in my life. She always will. And if you can’t accept that, you can retract your proposal with no guilt.”

She searched his face as the weight of it all fell on him. But instead of scaring him, as she expected, his expression grew determined. “You said yes. You’re not getting out of marrying me.” He set his hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed. “Introduce me to my new daughter.”

Her heart flipped over in her chest at his words, but being a parent was easier said than done. She was sure she had made some mistakes when it came to Abby, but she didn’t want marrying Christian to be one of them.

“Ma?”

She turned and lifted her daughter from her crib. Christian was a good man. He would treat her right. He would be kind to her baby. If this was going to work she had to trust him.

“Abby, love.” She lifted her up to Christian, trying not to think about all the things there were to worry about. “This is your daddy.”

“Hello, little one,” he said softly.

Abby stared at Christian and then did something Georgia never expected her little girl to do. She gasped, turned away from him and buried her face in Georgia’s shoulder.

Christian’s face fell. He wasn’t a very expressive man, but she could clearly see the hurt on his face.

“My burns...” His face turned to stone. “She’s afraid of me.”

He took a step away from her, and Georgia could see him mentally shutting down, but she wouldn’t allow it. When she looked at him she barely noticed his burns, and if she did it was only because they made him more beautiful to her. “It’s not your burns. You’re an enormous, perpetually scowling man, honey. And she hasn’t been around any men before. That was my fault. I let what happened to me affect how she feels about men.”

“She’s just a baby. I’m sure she’s not that deep.”

“If this marriage is going to work, you have to agree that I’m always right.”

His lips twitched and she took that as a sign that she should try again. “Abigail. This is your daddy. I want you to say hi.”